Many Ways to Plug In to Tech Savings

It’s a new year, all right, but economically, it still feels a lot like the old one. Seems that everywhere you look, things are being downsized: companies, paychecks, parties, trade shows and on and on. People aren’t just tightening their belts; they’re punching new holes in them.

Writing about tech at times like these is, therefore, sort of a strange job. It entails reviewing products that are often expensive and definitely elective. At first glance, it would seem that spending on electronics would be one easy place to cut back.

But technology giveth, and technology taketh away. You might think of high-tech gadgetry as something that drains your bank account — but it can save you money, too. A lot of it.

Herewith: a few suggestions for using tech to save money. These aren’t new ideas; the press has covered all of these technologies before. But when every $100 counts, it’s worth dusting them off for another look. (The savings estimates below are typical, but of course your mileage may vary; it all depends on what services you’re paying for now.)

CUT THE TV CORD, PART 1 Plenty of 20-somethings and college-somethings are doing this already: they’re canceling their cable or satellite TV service. (You can always have service reinstated once your finances recover.) Instead, they watch TV over the Internet.

At CBS.com, ABC.com, NBC.com and the various cable networks’ Web sites, you can watch regular, up-to-date TV shows, on demand, completely free, with excellent video quality and only a couple of 15-second ads an episode.

Or visit Hulu.com, where thousands more episodes are gathered into a simple, easy-to-use virtual TV, including episodes from series of years gone by.

The sacrifice: You have to watch TV on your computer screen (unless you hook up your PC to your TV, which is not simple). Some shows still aren’t available except from illegal downloads. And, of course, you need high-speed Internet (a running theme in this column). The savings: $500 to $1,200 a year.

CANCEL YOUR MOVIE CHANNELS Can’t bear to cut all your cable service? An HBO/Showtime package is probably adding about $20 a month to your cable bill. If you’re in it for the dramatic series and boxing matches or whatever, great. But if you’re in it for the movies, you can do much better.

Consider Netflix’s irresistible deal: for $9 a month, you can watch unlimited, on-demand movies, brought to you by the Internet, from an ever-growing library that already has 12,000 films.

You can watch on your Mac or PC, of course. But the Netflix on-demand movie software now comes built right into equipment that’s already connected to your TV: TiVo, Xbox 360, the $100 Roku Netflix box and certain Blu-ray disc players from LG or Samsung. More are coming.

You’ve probably never before experienced unlimited, on-demand movies; it’s a heady treat. (That same $9 a month also lets you check out one Netflix DVD at a time, by mail. That’s good, because the on-demand movies aren’t very recent.)

The sacrifice: You’re also losing the nonmovie stuff on HBO, the dramatic series and so on; then again, why not get those on Netflix DVDs? The savings: $132 a year.

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TV shows like 30 Rock, with Alec Baldwin, can be viewed using Hulu.com.Credit
Hulu.com

CUT THE TV CORD, PART 2 TV over the Internet generally looks great, but isn’t in high definition. So why not get yourself a hi-def antenna for your roof or even your bookshelf — and enjoy free over-the-air hi-def TV forever?

The sacrifice: Some technical setup. Fewer channels. The savings: $500 to $1,200 a year.

ELIMINATE YOUR CELLPHONE CONTRACT The average American’s cellphone bill is about $73 a month. Over the life of your two-year contract, that’s about $1,750. If you talk more than your allotted minutes in a month, they hit you with punitive per-minute overage fees; if you talk less, then you’re throwing money out the window.

It’s a no-win game. Unless, of course, you don’t play it — and instead sign up for a prepaid cellphone.

These phones and plans, given names like TracFone, AT&T GoPhone, Verizon InPulse and T-Mobile Prepaid, let you pay for cellphone service by the minute, not by the month. There’s no contract, no commitment, no credit check (or even ID check), no penalties and no chance of “going over” and getting a shocker of a bill.

These plans aren’t just for no-credit teenagers anymore. They’re fully legitimate, they rely on the same cell networks as regular plans, and the per-minute rates are reasonable. The only reason you haven’t heard of them is that the cell carriers don’t even mention them in their marketing. They’d much rather have your $1,750.

On some plans (“Pay as you go”), you buy minutes in advance, usually in $25 to $100 chunks, either by calling a toll-free number with a credit card or by buying a refill card at a phone center or convenience store and plugging its code into your phone. (“Hey honey — I’m going to run out to the 7-Eleven for a Slushee and some minutes.”)

On others (“Pay by the day”), you just pay a flat 10 cents a minute, plus $1 for each day that you actually use the phone. The rest of the year, you pay nothing.

The sacrifice: If your cellphone is your primary phone, and you use it for 40-minute socializing marathons, traditional plans may be more cost-effective. The savings: $900 to $1,500 a year.

ELIMINATE YOUR HOME PHONE Home landline service is also declining; once again, the Generation Y’ers are leading the way. Some of them are saving money by using their cellphones exclusively. And when they have to call overseas, they use free computer-to-computer “telephone” software like Skype, iChat and Google Talk. These programs are incredibly easy to use, and the sound quality is excellent.

If you shudder at the thought of cutting your landline entirely, here’s a less extreme option: sign up for T-Mobile’s HotSpot@Home Talk Forever plan. It’s intended specifically for people who don’t want to lose a home phone line altogether.

The deal: unlimited nationwide calling from your home phone for $10 a month. (It works by carrying your calls over the Internet, but you won’t notice any difference; you keep your existing phone and phone number.) The sacrifice: This service is available only if you also have a T-Mobile cellphone. Although if you have T-Mobile coverage in your area, that might be worth investigating; T-Mobile cell service is less expensive than its rivals’. The savings: About $250 a year.

BUY REFURBISHED COMPUTERS You can find refurbished computers and other electronic gear advertised on the makers’ Web sites, offered at hundreds of dollars below retail price — but you’d never buy one, right? After all, who wants a used computer?

Actually, though, “refurbished” doesn’t mean used; it usually means “returned, sometimes without even having been opened.” Products are returned for lots of reasons. People change their minds, get the same product as a gift, whatever.

In any case, a refurbished machine has been brought up to brand-new standards by the manufacturer — and, in fact, is inspected and tested more than a brand-new item. Aficionados consider refurbished gear one of the great secrets of the tech world. The sacrifice: Some companies, like Hewlett-Packard, issue a shorter warranty on them (90 days instead of a year). The savings: On a computer, from $300 to $2,000.

In all of these examples, the point is to look hard at some of the new technologies that, until now, you may have ignored because it’s a hassle to switch. The money you save could be your own.